Isabel Healthcare Blog

Diabetes Week took place last week in the UK. Around the world charities and healthcare organisations are working hard throughout the year to increase awareness of this potentially fatal, life-long condition that looks set to become a crisis of epic proportions if more is not done to slow it down. The ever increasing cases of pre-diabetes, a condition when blood sugar levels are higher than normal but not high enough to be classed as diabetes, is a global concern that could have massive implications towards the future burden on healthcare systems. As an example, in England alone, the prevalence of pre-diabetes more than tripled between 2003-11 and it is now estimated that a third of the English population could be in a pre-diabetic state.

Thursday 14th June sees World Blood Donor day, organised each year since 2004 by the World Health Organization (WHO). We last blogged about World Blood Donor Day back in 2015, and we think this awareness day is so important to highlight. The universal nature of this day reflects the universal need for blood, for all countries and many diseases or injuries. Each year, a different host country is given the responsibility of running the campaign and event on the 14th June, to help emphasise this global endeavour. This year, it is the turn of Greece, who have chosen the following slogan to accompany their campaign: “Be there for someone else. Give blood. Share life.”

At Isabel Healthcare we are constantly striving to help improve the world of diagnosis through our tools, our own research and content, and our encouragement of independent studies into the diagnostic process. In 2012, we released a free symptom checker tool that was based on our professional system, the Isabel Symptom Checker. This enables patients to research their symptoms and conditions using validated resources, to help doctors and patients alike to understand and interpret their symptoms. In recent years, the discussion around, and push for, better patient engagement, means institutions are searching for effective ways to engage with the patients they treat. We believe a symptom checker is a brilliant way to engage patients in their own health.

Migraines are a very common ailment, with studies suggesting they affect up to 13% of the US adult population. Symptoms can be moderate to severe, and can last hours or even days, and a lot of people confuse a migraine with a bad headache. It is however, a little different to other headaches, and people who suffer from regular migraines often describe attacks as debilitating, rendering them unable to carry out day to day activities.

Tickborne diseases are infectious pathogens transmitted by tick bites to humans. 

Worldwide screening programmes for cervical cancer are one of the great success stories of modern medicine and have been responsible for a massive decrease in the disease. In the US there has been a 50% decrease over the past 30 years due to screening, and results in the UK are not far behind. But the impact of this potentially devastating disease is not shared equally around the world. More than 8 in 10 deaths from cervical cancer occur in low to middle income countries, who tragically can’t afford the screening, or as it’s more commonly known, the smear test. Cervical Cancer is the fourth most common cancer in women with more than 527,000 cases being diagnosed worldwide every year, with approximately 50% of those leading to death.

In recent years the subject of mental health has been gaining more and more publicity, as we start to become both more conscious of the effects mental health have on our general wellbeing, and also more accepting. Removing the long held stigma surrounding mental health is paramount to us being able to research, treat and, most importantly, prevent the often complex diseases surrounding mental health. Amazingly, since 1949 the US have run their Mental Health Awareness Month in May, but it is only in the last decade that people have really started to accept mental health as an intrinsic part of our overall health. The UK also host Mental Health Awareness Week from 14th-20th May. The US are focussing on fitness, with the hashtag #4mind4body, highlighting the impact of good exercise and physical wellbeing on the mind, whilst the UK are exploring stress. Whilst not a mental health problem in itself, when stress is not dealt with effectively it is potentially the largest cause of mental health issues today. We wanted to explore both of these themes this May, and so we’ve written a little bit about each, to inspire everyone to think about their fitness, their stress levels, and their overall mental health.

This week’s blogpost is a guest post from Healthline, a health information site. The post is written by Kate Willett, a freelance writer located in Brooklyn, NY.  She writes about health, politics, and comedy.  She is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley. 

The word “technology,” isn’t usually associated with “health.” In fact, for many, technology may bring to mind negative health associations, such as being a couch potato playing video games or numbing out on social media.  Despite the potential negative impacts of technology when used addictively or in place of other healthy activities, there are many ways technology can be an important tool for taking care of your body and mind. 

Results of a recent survey published in the journal Neurology Genetics, on patients with mitochondrial disease, have stated that genetics identify the ‘diagnostic odyssey’ experienced. Diagnostic odyssey is defined as the time taken between a patient first developing symptoms and receiving a correct medical diagnosis. 210 patients participated in the survey, all of whom had physician diagnoses of mitochondrial disease and were recruited through the Rare Diseases Clinical Research Network.  The results were alarming:

Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) has been in the news a lot recently for different reasons. The American actress, Roseanne Barr recently announced that after 2 years preparing herself for a life with severely impaired vision following a diagnosis of AMD, a second opinion from a different doctor has revealed a more positive diagnosis: her so called ‘blindness’ was actually caused by a mole growing on the inside of her eye which, given time, could be removed. And in another similar story and an even more positive note, an 86 year old patient who had all but lost sight in one eye due to AMD, has now recovered his sight again, following pioneering stem cell therapy at London’s Moorfields Eye Hospital.